Mashrur Arefin has recently been appointed as the managing director & chief executive officer of the City Bank Ltd following an approval from the Bangladesh Bank, the central bank in the country.
He was working in the same bank as an additional managing director (AMD) for the last three years, the bank said in a statement on Monday.
Mashrur joined the City Bank in 2007 as head of retail banking. He also served the bank as its chief communications officer & chief operating officer among other roles.
Mr Arefin is a director of the bank’s subsidiary remittance company in Malaysia and its merchant bank subsidiary as well.
Mashrur has been in the banking industry for 24 years. He held a number of senior roles in branch banking, retail, SME, cards, operations & digital banking in banks like ANZ Grindlays, Standard Chartered - Qatar, American Express, Citibank N.A. and Eastern Bank. He is credited with launching American Express cards in Bangladesh.
Mashrur started his career as a management trainee in ANZ Grindlays Bank in 1995 and worked also in its headquarters in Australia. He played a leading role in the ‘bank transformation’ of City Bank that began in 2007.
An ex-student of Barisal Cadet College, he has an MA from Dhaka University and an MBA from Victoria University, Australia. He completed higher management courses in INSEAD, France. Besides banking, he is known as a writer too. His translation titled ‘Complete Stories of Franz Kafka’ won the ‘BRAC-Samakal Literary Award’ and was adjudged the year’s ‘Best Publication’ by Bangla Academy. His translation of Homer’s epic ‘The Iliad’ was also well received by readers and academics.
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